Studies of Peroxide Curing of Polybutadiene/Zinc Diacrylate Blends by Fast FT-IR Imaging

Abstract

Abstract Fast Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) imaging measurements of cured polybutadiene(PBD)/zinc diacrylate(ZDA) showed a heterogeneous distribution of zinc diacrylate. The phase structures were classified as PBD-rich and ZDA-rich domains. Upon curing, the increase in the infrared aliphatic CH stretching mode at 2916 cm−1 and the decrease in unsaturated CH stretching mode at 3075 cm−1 were observed as the single bond crosslinks were formed at the expense of double bonds. In a solvent diffusion experiment with toluene of these cured blends, it was observed that more solvent is imbibed into the PBD-rich matrix than the ZDA-rich domains. The difference is due to the lower swelling ratio of ZDA-rich domains than that of PBD-rich matrix.